


The Huntress' Shadow

by thecryoftheseagulls



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: The Last Court
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2594477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecryoftheseagulls/pseuds/thecryoftheseagulls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically I couldn't help myself because the Silent Hunter from the Last Court intrigued me, so I wrote a thing involving him and my Huntress, Elayna. </p><p>The man should really be an option as a lover tbh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Huntress' Shadow

They call her my Lady, Your Grace, Marquise. They call her the Huntress, and it is a name she both relishes and despises. It is apt, after all – she is skilled at the hunt, far more than she is skilled at settling the petty squabbles that come with ruling a marquisate. But her name, her real name – Elayna – no one calls her that, not ever, and she cannot help but wonder if in the annals of history they will call her simply the Huntress, forgetting that she ever had another name, like her ancestor has become nothing more than the Shame.

The thought troubles her more than she would like.

He does not appear to have a name either, the Silent Hunter who stalks her lands, appearing and disappearing at will, at her court when she wants him before she has even summoned him. Rumors gather about his person, like the morning mist forming dewdrops on blades of glass. They say he was the Empress’ lover once, in his time in Val Royeaux. They say his arrows never miss. They say he does not speak because he was born without a voice. They say many things. In Orlais, every lie and every rumor is weighed carefully for the half-truths it might contain. And so the Huntress wonders.

It is true that such a man would be of use at her side. Thus she goes to him after the hunt, brings him the head of the boar she has slain herself. At the edge of the Greenwood, he kneels, fletching arrows against a moss-covered stone. His long brown hair is tied back in a simple tail, and the mask he wears fits tight over the whole of his face like a second skin so that it does not impair his vision at all. His mask is black, ornamented with scenes of the hunt. When he looks up, his eyes are rainwater blue, startlingly bright against the dark visage which obscures all his other features. The Huntress casts the boar’s head to the ground and it rolls to a stop near his feet. He studies it, then grips it by the neck and stands, the nod he gives to her more a bow than a simple acknowledgement.

Amongst the trees, he gives the carcass to the still waters of a pool by the Masked Andraste’s feet. When he kneels again by the water’s edge, it is to bow his head in silent prayer. He comes from Val Royeaux, that much is true, so this devotion should not puzzle her as much as it does. But the marquisate of Serault has not known a Chantry’s influence in four generations. And this close to the Deepwoods, the old ways were never really forgotten. In the forest, the Huntress does not feel close to the Maker or Andraste; it is the gods of the hunt, the spirits of the woods that she pays homage to. Cernunnos, the horned god of the forest of old, is the one to whom she sends her prayers, not Andraste. She prays to him to make her hands steady and her mind clear. To the Divine when it is necessary she pays lip-service – she is Orlesian, after all, though this seems to be more in name than aught else – but she does not worship the Maker.

They settle into a pattern, Hunter and Huntress; she brings him the trophies of her kills and he offers them to the prophet and says, as she comes to expect, not a word. Then, she brings the last boar’s head and when he kneels to pray she does not leave immediately. She places her hand on his shoulder.

“You are a man of many talents, Hunter. I would have you at my side, as bodyguard and Shadow, if you will it.” He turns to study her, blue eyes sharp but unreadable, and she says, “I do not require an answer right away. Consider the offer.” She leaves him then.

It is three days later when he arrives at her court, in fashionable but practical clothing, sword at his side, bow on his back. The mask he wears is the same hunter’s mask as always. The crowd parts for him like water around rock, despite his silence. When he nears, he bows.

“When I left Val Royeaux I swore I would no longer be someone else’s Shadow. But I will be yours, and Serault’s.” He says, and his voice is deeper than she expected, low and raspy from disuse, but eloquent. The Huntress swallows. So he does speak.

And her Shadow he is. At court, he stands at her side, keen blue eyes scanning the crowds of nobles and servants alike. On the hunt, he rides beside her, and the Huntress has never shared this with one whose skill rivals her own. It pleases her. At night, he would guard her door if she allowed it, but she tells him he cannot watch her every hour of every day, and she has other guards for the night hours. He does not protest, of course, though it is a long look he gives her before he nods his acquiescence.

Then the Bard takes a knife for her, foiling an attempt on her life, and the Hunter’s face is white beneath his mask, lips thin. She laughs in public – it is a deadly Game the nobles play, and she is doing something right if they attempt to assassinate her outright. Assassination is foolishness, she proclaims. She is woods-wise and cunning and strong; not so easy to kill as those who spend all their time plotting the downfall of other houses.

Alone in her private chambers, she can be weak. The Huntress braces her hands against a table and rips the mask with the mirrored stag symbol of her family from her face. She breathes quickly, tries to calm the racing of her heart. She is no coward, but she has no wish to die and become nothing more than a forgotten name, a Huntress who could not rule her lands properly or play the Game so well as to keep her life.

“My lady,” says a voice behind her, a voice she has heard only once. Her Shadow has followed her into the room.

The Huntress raises her head, but does not turn, not now that she is barefaced.

“I have enemies,” she says. “You are my Shadow, to strike from the darkness where I cannot. You have given me your skills. Will you deal with this?”

She does not expect an answer, not truly. But the voice speaks again, nearer this time, and it may be her imagination but it seems he is only a pace away, if not less, the way the words sound low and intimate in her ear.

“It will be done.”

When she turns at last, he is gone.

She does not see him but in snatches for a week. The voices at court grow frenzied when they speak of him. They say he moves like a ghost, strikes like a viper, disappears like the moon behind a cloud. They say no one who moves against the Marquise dares do more than whisper her name, that the shadows themselves seem to terrify them. Her enemies vanish or speak no more. 

It is night when he returns, the moon half-full and high in the sky. There is a knock at the door to her chambers.

"A moment,” she calls, slipping from her bed. She belts a robe about her frame and slips on a mask of black silk that covers only her eyes, knotting it behind her head. It is one she reserves for a moment’s notice, simple and practical. The only adornment is the gold embroidery about the eyeholes that draws out the warm brown of her eyes.

It is her Shadow when she opens the door, and the Huntress finds she was expecting it to be him. He is dressed all in black this time, wearing his customary mask, and he bows and presents her with a report. She draws near to the dim firelight to read it – a list of names, each with a small description of their plots against her, written in a firm hand.

“They are all dealt with?” she asks, glancing back where he waits motionless a few paces inside the door. A pointless question. He would not have returned if it was not done. Still, he nods.

In simple clothes as he is now wearing, it is easier to appreciate the firm lines of his body, the strength in him that is often disguised under finery. He is very still. _When I left Val Royeaux I swore I would no longer be someone else’s Shadow._ The words, the most he has ever spoken, come to her. She wonders if he regrets this decision to give himself to her, after what she has asked of him. She wonders why he made himself her Shadow in the first place.

"You would break your vow for me, for Serault,” she murmurs, not a question.

The Hunter steps forward into the puddle of warm firelight on the floor, his face beneath his mask still in shadow. She cannot read him, cannot know what he is thinking or what he does not say. He nods again.

She feels…lonely. There is a man in her chambers at a ridiculous hour, and he brings her word of the people he has killed and rendered inept for her, but he does not speak. She still does not know what drives him, why he would take the offer she made him out of need and mixed desire for his presence. She is a poor ruler, struggling to balance the needs of her people with her wish to disappear deep into the Applewoods and never return to this maddening marquisate of never-ending turmoil. Small wonder he stands there silent, judging her.

She turns her back, knowing she cannot govern her own face so well when it is covered only by the barest hint of cloth.

“Thank you,” the Huntress says, the expression inefficient and yet all she has to give. She reaches up to brush her brown hair behind her ear, and accidentally upsets the loose knot she has tied on the mask. The silk unravels, its edges slipping down the back of her hair and the mask sliding down her nose. She reaches to catch it, a soft cry on her lips, when its downward motion is halted. She stills. The Hunter’s hands are on the ends of the mask, holding it up, his callouses catching against the softness of her unbound hair.

Silence, only the soft whump of a log falling apart in the fireplace, and the hammering of the Huntress’s heart in her chest to be heard.

“I said for Serault,” his voice whispers at her back, and it is like the richest of red wines or the drag of velvet against iron. “But I scheme and strike only for you, Elayna.”

Her breath catches. She cannot remember the last time someone called her by her name. She crumples the silk mask in her hands and pulls it from his grasp, drops it to the floor.

“Say it again. Say my name again.”

“Elayna,” the Hunter whispers, and then his hands are sweeping her hair over one shoulder and gripping her, turning her to face him.

“Hunter,” she sighs, when she stands before him barefaced.

“Theron,” he corrects, reaching behind his head to undo the clasps of his own mask. He sets it on the mantel, rubs his hand down his face before he turns to see her. “My name is Theron.”

He has a sharp nose, thick dark brows that seem most comfortable with scowling, though they are softened at the moment. His jaw is covered in rough stubble, and his blue eyes seem to drink in her face greedily. He is beautiful, she thinks, and realizes that she has thought so all along, even when she had only his eyes to tell her so. When she whispers his name in return, those blue eyes darken, and he presses forward to kiss her, drag his mouth over the unresisting softness of her lips. She weaves her fingers into the length of his hair and draws his mouth aside so she can slant her mouth along his bristled jaw.

After that night, she does not send him away and replace him with another bodyguard in the dark hours, but shares her bed with him. When the rumors spread that the Huntress’ Shadow never leaves her side, day or night, the threats against her person melt away like fog burned off in the sun.


End file.
